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White Christmas? Probably Not

There’s been little to post about on this blog since October 30th since the weather pattern has been so quiet and so mild and so boring! There are many indications that this tranquil and relatively mild weather pattern will continue through New Years and probably into the beginning of January.

The climatological odds of a white Christmas (based on 1981-2010 normals) range from about 20% in Groton to 70% in far northwest Connecticut. The I-84 corridor has a slightly less than 50/50 shot at a snow depth >1″ on Christmas morning. The exact percentage is probably close to 40 or 45% in metro Hartford.

This year given the pattern, and the tendency for storms and air masses to trend warmer than forecasted by models, I’d say you can probably lop about half off your climatological chances for a white Christmas. Here’s a rough estimate for Christmas 2011:

New Haven – 10%

Hartford – 20%

Torrington – 30%

Not very good. Across northern New England there’s a chance for a little snow on 12/21 which may be enough to spare Vermont, New Hampshire, and interior Maine from a brown Christmas.

4 thoughts on “White Christmas? Probably Not”

I’ll miss the white Christmas too! Though Chicago is much colder than Connecticut during the winter most of CT averages more snow per season than Chicago. Chicago averages just under 40″ of snow while Windsor Locks averages just under 50″ of snow.

It is untrue that “most of Connecticut averages more snowfall than Chicago”.
According to the NWS office in NYC, NWS stations like Bridgeport (ave seasonal snow 31 inches)…and Norwich (ave seasonal snow 21 inches) gets far less than the near 40 inches that Chicago gets annually. In fact, many areas of coastal Connecticut from Madison to Groton average less than 20 inches of snow.

Also, Chicago is much colder than anywhere in the Tri-State area in the coldest months (Jan/Feb). The mean January temp at NWS Chicago is 23. 7 F…the mean temp at NWS Bridgeport is 30. 1 F.

Your numbers, as usual, are completely incorrect. You spend more time trolling this blog to write garbage than actually finding accurate information. Norwich does not average 21″ of snow per year and no where in Connecticut averages less than 20″. You are using incomplete data sets from coop stations on the NCDC database to prove your point.